Slow Love

Oprah Interview-Part 2

Oprah: How does this affect your music?I see you are still touring.

Prince-I still write music. Most of it is about her or us. I just do not any longer have the urgency to do it. I can write when I want to or not. I choose to spend a lot of  time with her. She is the center of my life and has balanced it. We just got back from a tour out west, before we got married. She was with me the entire time. We had a fantastic time on that tour. The band loves her being there. The young musicians say she is like playing for their Moms and they call her Mom. We just had an interesting rehearsal yesterday. One number was frustrating Morris and myself.The guys kept messing it up. They'd get one part right, then they would mess up another. One of them finally said, "Go get Mom, we'll get it right." I went and got her to watch us rehearse. We ran thru the set and the last song that was the tough one, they nailed it. It was magic. It is her affect, she has on them and the music. Perfect every time.

Here is another one for you, Oprah. We were going into the venue at SXSW Festival in Austin, TX in March for a sound check. There were gobs of people walking around, other artist, staff, VIP's. We were walking across this space and out of  the blue we hear, GIGI, GIGI, GIGI in stereo. She heard it, turned around and left me standing in the dust. It was Dave Grohl and John Fogarty. She had not seen them in over 25 years. By the time I caught up with her, John had her in a bear hug swinging her around. Of all the people milling around, they picked HER out of the crowd. And that was a humbling experience let me tell you, Oprah.(Prince snickering)  She had done articles on both of them. CCR and Nirvana and it was the  CCR article that helped me pick her. But you see the affect she has is also a lasting one. They came to see my show and they figured out what was going on between us. So,we had to announce our wedding engagement. I blew it, I could not hide my feelings for her. We knew with the west coast tour, it would be speculated all over the world.So we just announced it. (Prince and Oprah hysterically laughing. Gigi just chuckled and shook her head)

Oprah: Since you mentioned it. I've noticed that you have been more open and not as private as you used to be. Can you tell me about that?

Gigi:(snickering) Let me answer this one. When I came to Paisley in January, that is one of thechanges that I saw and made me wonder. He had always been reclusiveand keep his private life, private kind of person. AND went to greatlengths to do so. The very day I get here, we go to a coffee shop in Chanhassen and get a coffee. We sat down and spent over an hour talking. That was a very public outing. I asked him about it and he said, "I don't care anymore. I'm tired of it bogging me down and I'm tired of fighting it."(Prince nodding yes.) I have to explain, Privacy and Security are two different things. Security is for safety. Privacy is like this interview, being open or not about your life or personal things. Yes, we still have security. Privacy, well that flew out the window the first week I was there. So, on Friday at the Dakota Jazz club, he tricks me to get up on stage and sits me in a chair. Then proceeds to sing to me a love song. All 300 people knew what was going on. I knew that was going to hit the Star Tribune. Then before the 2nd show, he sits with me in the front row prior the show and the whole place was a buzz. We had a replay of the first show. By the time those 300 people saw it, they were cheering and whistling while he was singing to me. I knew for sure it would hit the paper. Sure enough, Jon Bream did an article. I knew Jon well and he did not give up my name. He knew who he saw onstage. At that point, I had not said yes. I was wanting to explore the relationship and see if I could live that lifestyle and if he truly had changed and buried that angry twin. It wasn't long. He was all in 3 days after I got there. It just took me 3 more weeks after that. I was committed after 3 days but I did not want to commit to a lifetime journey at that point. I am committed now for that journey and we will see where it takes us. I know I am in for the ride of my life.